someone who's doing some things
Apple’s mobile OS. I find that I use iOS (on the iPad and iPhone) for a lot of things these days, mainly because it’s just so useful.
I’ve written a bit about Drafts before. It’s had a massive overhaul and added a load of new functionality. I’ve only had a brief play with the new features, and whilst they seem quite useful, it still isn’t the level of automation I’d like to have in my device.
I’ll give it a bit more of a chance, but it doesn’t go far enough.
Actions for iPad presents as another interesting possibility for automating things. This time automating the use of your Mac from your iPad. Here’s what the app store description says:
Control your computer applications in the best way, your way.
Advanced but incredibly simple to use, Actions is a revolutionary app that lets you interact more naturally with your computer, thanks to your beloved iPad.
You can send a wide variety of commands (see the list below) to any software with a tap and create your personal palette for each one. Your most used actions will be always lying directly at your side, handily and neatly organized in Sets and Subsets.
Each Set is completely customizable with different colors and many icons (+900!), and contextual aware: change app on your computer and your iPad will always show you the right set of actions, it’s automagic!
Actions covers universal digital needs: you can both improve and streamline you workflow with massive softwares as Adobe Suite’s and idly control your everyday apps with ease, or even iTunes remotely from the warm side of your sofa.
Direct manipulation and instant feedback lets you save time and frustrations, transforming your digital experience in something new, closer to the future of computer interaction.
Compose your palette choosing from a wide variety of actions:
MAIN FEATURES
Ableton Live, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Aperture, Evernote, Excel, Internet Explorer, Final Cut, Finder, Firefox, Garageband, Chrome, iCal, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, Keynote, Logic Pro, Mail, Notes, Numbers, Outlook, Pages, Pixelmator, Powerpoint, Reeder, Reminders, Safari, TextEdit, Vlc, Word, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Media Player.
I’m going to see what it can do as it’s only £2.49, which isn’t much more than a coffee, so it’s not like it’s a big investment. Also, the developers have an interesting feature in the works involving macros which could be really useful.
Just a few shots of my new meeblip synth and trying it out in a variety of ways.
I read about this app, Pythonista and how much you could do with it, so I finally buckled and bought it. So far I’ve only got to take a look at the sample code that comes with the app, and that’s quite impressive. However, what I’m really interested in is the ability of this app to effectively script iOS.
I think my next step will be to take a look in the forums and see what other people have made with Pythonista. When I’ve got a clearer idea of what’s possible I’ll write something again.
I’ve added a new page under projects which will eventually have a lot more stuff on automation, in iOS, in Android, and on the web. You can find the main section here and the pearl tree on iOS automation here.
I’ve been interested in the internet of things for a long time although to date I haven’t properly found a use for the technology for myself. However, hubcape, and the service it links to, now cosm, provide a great way to monitor stuff connected to the internet of things, and today Hubcape got an update after a very long time.
This is good for a couple of reasons, firstly it means that the developer is still interested in the app and is hopefully going to continue to support it, and secondly it means it’ll work better with cosm, which used to be called pachube, which is a service on the internet that lets you connect objects and then make use of the data that they send out.
So I’m glad to see a new version of hubcape and it’ll make me think about doing something with data again.
I saw the new version of Tasker for Android today. It really is very cool stuff, but it also serves as a constant reminder that iOS has very little at all in the way of automation applications or functionality. I’ve mentioned drafts and launch center pro before, but neither of these are a patch on Tasker. It’s a real shame as it’s a gap in the market which I’m sure would be filled if Apple would let developers make something like tasker, but that’s not going to happen for a while yet I think.
Launch Center Pro from App Cubby on Vimeo.
Even though I can see it is useful I’m still not completely sold on it. But perhaps I need to find some better uses for myself.
This is another automation app that I got that without really knowing what I was going to use it for. However, it’s been updated and added a load of new stuff. Here’s what they loaded it up with:
So that all looks really cool. However, having dug around in there for a bit longer I’m still none the wiser about how I can use this in a constructive way! I’d really like to find ways to make use of this automation, although there isn’t a huge amount of automation available. It is still at the periphery. Still, I want to give it a go and see if I can make any active use of it.
I’ve had this app for a week or so now and although it has some amazing functionality I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do with it or how it’ll ever be useful. It’s sort of in the ‘solution in search of a problem’ camp.
The app itself has a huge amount of functionality to it. It’s able to share text and mark up to a very wide number of services and can be configured very easily to do this. So much so that I actually made a little search function for drafts that allows you to send a piece of text into Palm Sounds (blog) and search the entire site with that text. It’s pretty simple. The search URL is:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:palmsounds.net+%5B%5Bdraft%5D%5D
Yep, that’s all there is to it. You put that into drafts and you can send any text to search Palm Sounds.
So that’s all well and good, but, what’s it for? What can I use it for? The short answer is I haven’t really thought of a reason as yet. Which is a bit of a shame as I think this is a clever app.
When I think of one, I’ll let you know.
I am Ashley Elsdon 